issues with SMS text msgs after downgrade to sprint 1.0.2 and OTA upgrade to 1.4

has anyone experienced issues with SMS text after downgrading their GSM pre (mine is a movistar spain) to the modified sprint 1.0.2 and then upgrading to sprint 1.4? I did this last night, and now I noticed one of the changes is that the text app shows the number of characters being typed. I cannot type more than 20 characters. The app simply will not allow this. Any idea why this could be? TIA.